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Ok, let me set the record straight on the spa thing. It wasn't an "executive retreat", as reported. It was an incentive reward for their independent sales force (ie agents). If you, as an independent agent not employed by AIG, produce a certain amount of business, you get to go on this trip on top of any commissions you earned. Given the venue, I seriously doubt it was refundable even if AIG wanted to cancel it.
Sales people, such as myself, are motivated by things like this. I have never bought a golf ball or paid for a round of golf out of my own pocket despite having played at some of the premier courses in this country. I have skied on these things, driven race cars and been to countless sporting events, inclding 2 Superbowls. Of those, one was with AIG about 5 years ago.
It is as simple as that's the way my professional world works. My company is taking its top (employed) producers to Napa in 2 weeks where we'll drink $300 bottles of wine and eat at one of the best restaurants in the area as a perk for performance. That's what all these are, so people who complain about "their money" being spent on these junkets don't understand sales at all. If you demotivate your sales force by cancelling these kinds of things, you will kill your sales. Period.
Thanks for letting me vent.
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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo
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